In an ancient and forgotten era, from an island cluster in the Guardian's Sea emerged a people superficially similar to humans, but possessing eternal youth and knowledge and wisdom that belied their young age. From their city of pillars on the island of Atarsis, of wondrous beauty up close and blending perfectly with verdant nature from a distance, its explorers colonised the nearby shores of Valoran. Their immortality was tied to the existence of a magnificent mooncrystal idol to the Star-King on the highest peak of Atarsis, its perfect facets glowing in the night sky with the light of a thousand stars. Crystalized from the waning fires of an ancient eruption, exposed by a landslide and sculpted into the image and likeness of the deity by proto-human whalers, the mooncrystal idol was a natural capacitor of arcane energy, accelerating the development of those who slept in its rays tenfold and blessing them and their offspring with eternal beauty and grace. They called themselves the Elvenfolk.

For aeons they prospered, ruled justly by their king Alberon, and guided the waking races of Valoran, taught them farming techniques and initiated them in the use of magic.

But what the fires of the earth created, they would destroy. The rumbling underneath Atarsis foretold armageddon, yet the Elvenfolk never considered evacuating the island. What use would it be if the crystal would be lost? Mortality and death were... unnatural for those who were chosen by fate and the Star-King to live forever. To protect his people, Alberon went to work in the deepest caverns underneath his palace to craft a spell that would protect himself and his people from the fury of nature. After many days and nights of research, Alberon emerged and cast his spell in the utmost secrecy, infusing his own body with the lifeforce of every Elf on Runeterra. As long as he walked the earth, no Elf would die under his rule, and as long as one Elf lived, so would Alberon. His people would not need to know yet. They might consider it sacrilege.

When the volcano erupted, the lava ravaged the City of Pillars and its mooncrystal idol of the Star-King who had abandoned them and the tablets with desperate prayers, but did not harm a single Elf. After the cataclysm, Alberon magically contacted his people who had washed up on the shores of Valoran or were clinging to pumice rafts confused as to why they were still alive, summoning them to the jagged rocks where the temple to the Star-King once stood. The splendid idol had shattered, leaving only its indestructible adamantium throne. Among the rubble glistened the mooncrystal crown that once adorned the idol. Alberon carefully placed it on his head and sat down on the throne. Whereas the Star-King only offered death, he, Alberon, brought the Elvenfolk the gift of life.

But this gift of life was more unto a curse. Unable to withstand the drain of the lifeforce of a hundred thousand Elves, Alberon slowly weakened, and with him, the Elvenfolk started to wither and die. But as long as Alberon lived, so would they. Instead of passing away, they faded into a ghostlike state of semi-existence, condemned to an eternity of undeath due to his spell. And it was all his fault. Yet Alberon, now scarred by fatigue and time, refused to surrender himself and his people to oblivion. The Elvenking vowed to retrieve the fragments of the idol, from the bottom of the sea if necessary, and rebuild the only object that could bring his people back to physical life. Donning his torn regal cloak and the mooncrystal crown, Alberon slipped away into the ocean and was never seen again.

Today all that remains of Atarsis is a wasteland of volcanic cliffs, avoided by sailors and inhabited by ghosts. But at long last Alberon's work is nearing completion. The last piece of the idol, defended by a giant squid with fanaticism in its eyes, was snatched from Alberon's grasp by a human diver. Holding on to the glowing fragment, the diver managed to defeat the creature after a titanic struggle and had enough energy left in him to walk back to the shore. Alberon could not bring himself to kill one who was so obviously protected by the Star-King. So he followed him into the new and foreign human world...

Model

In life, Alberon wore the silver ceremonial armor, mooncrystal jewelry and shimmering white regalia befitting an Elvenking, and he still does, despite centuries of water and barnacle damage and the fact that he himself is barely clinging to this world. Resembling an Elven lich without the evil streak, the noble but cursed Alberon wields a sword in one hand and a magic staff in the other, still fighting with Elven grace.

Skin
Atlantean Alberon - A glimpse of Alberon in his prime as king of Atlante, the human name for Atarsis.

Concept
Alberon's non-ultimate abilities create minions under Alberon's command, one per ability. The minions have no autonomous AI but can be given move and attack orders by casting the ability again (this has no mana cost). They do have a maximum range and walk towards Alberon when this range limit is exceeded.

[Passive] Oathbound
Alberon has up to 5 stacks, each representing an Elven spirit that can be summoned. Summoning abilities have no cooldown, but using a summoning ability consumes one stack. Stacks are regenerated at a rate of 1 every 15 seconds (improved by CDR). When Alberon takes lethal damage, all remaining stacks are consumed to heal him for 4% of his maximum health per stack.

[Ultimate] Undying Reign"Do not fear the army in front of you. Fear the one below you" -Tethmai, Elvish Deathless
Toggle - Replaces Alberon's summoning abilities with three utility spells. These spells involve the corresponding minion in some way and therefore only work when the minion is alive. This toggle has no cooldown and no mana cost. It is available at level 1 and cannot be upgraded, but other abilities go up to level 6.

[Q] Atarsis Lion Guard"Death could not stop us, what hope do you have?" -Eithac, undead Elvish Lion Guard
Summons an undead Lion Guard at Alberon's location. The Lion Guard is a skeleton wearing silver armor and a white cloak, carrying a morningstar and kite shield emblazoned with the seven-pointed Elvenstar. Cast the ability again to give a move or attack order.

Undying Reign replaces this ability with: Intercept"Death comes blockin' " -Eithac, undead Elvish Lion Guard
Alberon commands his Lion Guard to protect an allied champion (including Alberon himself) or assault an enemy champion. The Lion Guard dashes to the target and turns into an immaterial and invulnerable ghost that floats above the target for a short time. When the spell wears off, the Lion Guard materialises next to the target. Cast this ability again to cancel it early.
> Allied champion: the Lion Guard acts as a living (undead) shield, absorbing incoming damage into his own health pool.
> Enemy champion: the Lion Guard haunts the target, bashing it with his kite shield each time the target is hit with an auto attack, inflicting additional damage and a ministun.

[W] Atarsis Ranger"See if I can shoot that big red juicy apple off your neck" -Aleka, undead Elvish Ranger
Summons an undead Ranger at Alberon's location. The Ranger is a female zombie with long spines growing from her back and disheveled white hair trailing behind her, wearing a white tabbard and large crescent crown and wielding a silver bow. Cast the ability again to give a move or attack order.

Undying Reign replaces this ability with: Dirge"A funeral song for the living" -Aleka, undead Elvish Ranger
Alberon commands his Ranger to sacrifice herself. The Ranger lets out a loud screech and shatters into ectoplasmic fragments, damaging and briefly silencing nearby enemies caught in the blast. Nearby allies (including Alberon himself) are healed based on how many enemy champions and minions were hit.

[E] Atarsis Magocrat"Nothing is certain but death and hexes" -Arcus, undead Elvish Magocrat
Summons an undead Magocrat at Alberon's location. The Magocrat is an ashen lich wearing glowing ornate white and gold robes, carrying a staff of illumination and floating on the wind. He attacks with short ranged magical bolts. Cast the ability again to give a move or attack order.

Undying Reign replaces this ability with: Deathless Sanctum"Longevity spells are hard to cast on humans. They die so easily..." -Arcus, undead Elvish Magocrat
Alberon commands his Magocrat to channel a magical defensive dome that greatly reduces the damage sustained by nearby allied champions (including Alberon himself). Like any channelled spell, a stun or silence interrupts it, but it must be cast on the Magocrat and not Alberon.

Gift giving"Elvish is not selfish" -Alberon
As a soft support, Alberon has no direct offensive potential and focusses entirely on augmenting the strengths of his team. All three of his Undying Reign abilities support allies in some form, though two also deal damage.

No self centred AoE
Check.

Ammo system
His minions consume ammo to summon, granted by his Oathbound passive.

Strategy

Role
Support or AP mid

Recommended items
Doran's Ring
Ruby Sightstone
Ionian Boots
Shurelya's Reverie
Banner of Command
Runic Bulwark
(As a summoner, Alberon does not just support his carry but also his minions, hence the aura items)

Tactics"Wherever there are dangers, there are Rangers" -Aleka, undead Elvish Ranger

Laning
The leash range of Alberon's minions is not all that long compared to many skillshots, but they require attention from the enemy laners who have to keep killing them to avoid taking too much damage. In a kill lane, Lion Guard should be maxed first, with one level in Ranger and Magocrat. When the attack signal is given, cast Intercept on the opponent and sic your other pets on them. Between their ranged auto attacks and the auto attacks from your carry, Intercept should stunlock the target for the whole duration. In a defensive or poke lane, max the other two minions first because the Lion Guard shield is ineffective when the enemies can just harrass the Lion Guard to low health instead and make the shield useless. When the enemy engages, Deathless Sanctum will force them to spend a precious stun on the Magocrat or else they lose the shootout.

Sieging
Maxed Rangers and Magocrats add up to nice damage from a distance. But Alberon is not an initiator and should leave this role to others, dealing as much damage as possible at the start and then activating Deathless Sanctum and casting Intercept to turn the tides. Don't forget to explode the Ranger when it is about to die.

Teamfights
Unless Alberon is fed and loaded on AP, using the minions' abilities is probably a better use of them than straight up DPS once the fight gets under way. The Magocrat will make or break teamfights with his Deathless Sanctum, a win bubble that is easy to stop with a single stun or silence. Timing is everything. Alberon does lack hard CC of his own other than Intercept, which is a very powerful stun but only if someone is actively attacking the target. To counter enemies dedicated to killing minions, send in a Ranger first and detonate it as soon as it gets into Dirge range, using the silence to cover the gap with the other two minions.

Jungling
The minions deal minimal damage at low levels, but have enough health to tank a number of hits. There is a choice to be made between spending points into Lion Guard, which is the only melee minion and therefore the only minion capable of tanking and also has Intercept for hard CC, and spending points into Ranger (and Magocrat) which results in a much slower but very safe clear thanks to Deathless Sanctum and heals.

Attack"Oh, the elvendom""Such indignity!""Learn your place""Let me demonstrate our superiority""An example for others""I have spoken""The dead will bury the dead""Turn it up to elven""Earmarked for death""Kneel or be knelt"

Taunt"League champion... how the mighty have fallen""I will remember your life and death, summoner"

Joke"As mighty as the old Fates, times two""Can you actually hear with those?"

Summoning a Ranger"Ranger!""Archer!""Bring the pain!""Show them what you've got!"

Summoning a Magocrat"Magocrat!""Mystifex!""Advisor!""Appear before me!"

--

Luninareph

12-10-2012 12:36 PM

Looking at this champion, my immediate thought is that he seems fun, but a bit clunky and kind of overpowered.

Lore: The lore does a great job of giving Alberon and his people their background and pathos. However, I do not feel it adequately addresses the question of why Alberon decides to join the League of Legends. I assume the diver who retrieved the last crystal piece is Nautilus and that following him is how Alberon got to the League's HQ, but why does he begin fighting? Why doesn't he petition Nautilus to give him the crystal? Why does Nautilus--or whoever the diver was--even want the crystal at all? There are a lot of important questions left unanswered by this lore.

Passive: I very much like the consume-stacks-to-stave-off-death idea, although I am curious as to how the health is restored. Is it an instant heal? Does it revive him like Guardian Angel or Zilean's ult? If Alberon is hit with more damage than he would regenerate with this passive, does he just die immediately or is the excess damage of the first killing blow ignored? (Example: Alberon has 100 HP and would recover 100 HP from his passive when he dies, but the next hit he takes does 300 damage. Does the passive proc and consume his stacks, or not?)

Q: This is the spell that comes off as most overpowered to me. That Alberon can put a 560 + 0.7 AP shield on an ally for 5 seconds strikes me as ridiculous, and the stun-locking from the enemy cast is almost as bad. I feel it falls under the category of "giving the enemy the illusion of counterplay," as even if they try to run, the stunning will prevent them from getting anywhere. Furthermore, how many times can he use this ability with the same Lion Guard? Does the Lion Guard die after using it? Or can he just spam it infinitely? On what kind of cooldown? Does it even eat turret shots? Talk about the ultimate turret-diving tool! Also, on a simply technical level, does the 15-second CD between any spirit dying and being able to summon another one go down with CDR?

W: While I kind of feel that Dirge might be trying to do too many things at the same time, the Ranger seems nifty enough. I like her.

E: The Magocrat feels a little like a repeat of the other two spirits to me. He's a ranged attacker, like the Ranger, with a damage-decreasing skill, like the Lion Guard. What purpose does he actually serve that makes him different from his fellows? His Deathless Sanctum is also ridiculously strong, like Intercept, and the counterplay seems irritating. Wasting a stun on a minion that otherwise is fairly useless seems a bit galling to me. I suppose he serves the purpose of forcing the use of an enemy stun, but that's the kind of thing that would cause me to see Alberon on my enemy team and groan with irritation.

R: This is where the clunkiness comes in. Using one set of QWE for moving and targeting the elves and the second set for triggering their abilities feels like it could be pretty unpleasant. If you forget which set of abilities you're in and trigger the Ranger to explode when you just meant for her to attack, you'd be pretty annoyed. It's also hard since, unlike Nidalee and Elise--who visually change on the field to reflect the skillset they're in (we won't talk about Jayce, I don't like Jayce)--Alberon wouldn't have anything other than his icons to remind you which ability set you're currently in. I confess, I can't think of a better system to implement all of the features you're going for here, but I still worry that they wouldn't play out as nicely as you might like in practice.

I love summoning abilities, I love the passive, and I love the Ranger. However, I have several other qualms with his design, and to me he seems like he would be both overpowered and extremely aggravating--beyond what a champion should be expected to be--to the enemy team. Of course, all of this is just my own opinion on the matter; take it or ignore it as you please.